Five Things You Need to Read Today

Here’s your weekly update, for subscribers only, drawing your attention to five stories that are worth catching. This week, the main theme is absolute power and the corruption it breeds.

1. Charlie Rose and Lord Acton

The wave of accusations of sexual misconduct by powerful men has now come for respected interviewer Charlie Rose, though this story mostly strikes me as a cautionary tale about seeking fame and money at the expense of happiness. Rose comes across as a kind of pathetic figure, puttering around an empty seaside mansion in Long Island, unable to form substantial relationships with grown women, and reduced to plying 25-year-old interns with sob stories about how lonely he is.

This sort of thing is likely to devolve into a witch hunt and ensnare some guys who are less predatory than pathetic. I’ll leave you to decide for yourself on what side of that line Charlie Rose falls, if you care to do so. And I’ll understand if you don’t care to do so.

But the larger abuse will be the use of these scandals to portray all men as inherently evil.

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